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Last summer when my daughter’s sports season got underway, my husband surprised her with a new pair of super-cool field hockey cleats. They were hot pink and this child loves anything bright. I mean, these cleats were a visual delight to any female teen and her friends would have coooed over them.

Her eyes grew big as she observed the color. Within seconds, she politely thanked him, but she clearly wasn’t thrilled – and he noticed. As soon as he left the room, she whispered to me: “I can’t keep these.”

I knew why but my husband didn’t. I also knew that she didn’t want to disappoint her Dad who took time out of his work day to stop at Dicks and pick them out for her.

The reason? She had recently overheard my son and I talking about Nike’s past reputation for using child labor in third world countries. The company has worked to erase this image after it went viral several years ago.

The point is that my daughter, who really, really would have had the coolest cleats on the field if she kept them, did not.

For my youngest, when she saw the Nike symbol on the shoe, the bright pink instantly faded into a dreary sweat shop where she saw six year olds sewing for hours on end. While we certainly have had our share of Nike sports shoes over the years while raising kids, this one time, now familiar with Nike’s past, my daughter could not keep them. She simply overheard a conversation about a school project and corporate practices related to child labor. She is no advocate of boycotts, and is the most quiet of my three children. Yet, she has an immovable foundation of what is right and wrong, and a strength that enables her to say “no” in a world where most people say “yes” to keep the peace.

I have little knowledge of where most of my household brands are made. I will look for the Made in the USA stamp when shopping and support Hobby Lobby and Chick Fil A, who promote conservative values in a culture experiencing rapid moral decay.

What prompted this quick story and post was a news piece I saw last week called a “Christmas Buycott”. It reminded me of the Nike conversation but it’s unrelated to child labor :). Instead, it is directly related to conservative Christian values. The news story led me to the Faith Driven Consumer website. Their most recent list of the most and least faith-friendly companies can be found here.